I (and my wife) worked in photo labs for many years. I've taken thousands of pictures and I'm very fond of doing so. I had hoped to mothball my SLR with the purchase of a Sony MVC-FD95. I'm very happy with the pictures I've taken so far. On the monitor, the photos look great. However, my HP722C seems to print photos magenta. I've used the ArcSoft PhotoStudio software that came with the camera to calibrate the printer. Adding green/removing red (though I'm new to this kind of program) to no avail. Once I get correct skin tones, the surrounding area is too green and usually considerably lighter. Do I need a new printer? Is there some software that will help? Or am I expecting too much at this stage?

-- Dan Barnette (barnetted@state.mi.us), June 28, 2000

Answers

Sounds like your monitor needs to be calibrated. Your printer needs to be calibrated to your monitor. That is what you are viewing the image on. Then when you correct the image, the printer will follow the image on the monitor. If your monitor is too green, the odds are the print could very well turn out to be magenta when the print is finally made.

-- jonathan ratzlaff (jonathanr@clrtech.bc.ca), June 28, 2000.

I've seen the pictures on 4 different computers. They are only magenta on my print out. I guess I could adjust my monitor so that what I see on the screen is shifted green, but since the kids use this pc as well, I'd have to make those adjustments every time I want to print photos. So I'd be adjusting the screen green, then calibrating the printer to make the display look right again.

I'm really leaning towards a new printer, but I may be leaning too soon. I'd hate to spend the money on a new printer if I'll never get the results they show on the printer's test prints at the store. Does anyone out there ever get the kind of quality prints that the test printouts show? Or is that not possible from a ditigal camera? (mine is a 2.1 megapixel)

-- Dan Barnette (barnetted@state.mi.us), June 29, 2000.